The Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health sponsors two projects which are being carried out by DLR’s German Remote Sensing Data Center in cooperation with Norwegian partners. This joint effort is the result of an agreement between environmental ministries in Bavaria and Norway to intensify scientific collaboration in the area of atmosphere research.

The two projects:

"The significance of high mountain regions for energy transport in the atmosphere" is the title of the first project. Atmospheric waves, particularly gravity waves, are one of the major factors influencing the atmosphere. In the context of studying gravity wave parameters, DLR, the Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus and Tromsø University (Norway) want to improve the way gravity waves are taken into account in climate and atmosphere models and thereby increase their precision. This work is based on data collected above and near the Alps and the Scandinavian mountains during measurement campaigns and by satellites.

A second grant was awarded by the Bavarian State Minister of the Environment and Public Health, Dr. Markus Söder, for establishing a Data Analysis Center. The purpose is to connect the ALOMAR observatory north of the polar circle in the Vesterålen archipelago with Germany’s highest research station on the Zugspitze mountain, the Schneefernerhaus. ALOMAR Observatory offers scientists from six countries a modern infrastructure for comprehensive atmosphere and climate research.

Schneefernerhaus is unique worldwide as a platform for continuously monitoring the atmosphere and analyzing processes affecting weather and the climate. Both facilities are situated in exposed environments which react very sensitively to climate change, thereby providing excellent locations for monitoring and understanding climate change, critical preconditions for improving forecasts of how the climate will evolve.

The main concept behind the Data Analysis Center is to promote a standardized and expandable infrastructure between observatories by linking research activities so that simple and reliable access to data and data products from both ground-based and satellite-based systems is possible.